My Father's Voice: MISSION TRIP DOMINICAN REPUBLIC STYLE.....

The day is finally here. After months and months of planning the Project 52 mission trip to the Dominican Republic has arrived. Altogether, 24 excited and willing participants will be leaving Des Moines on Friday morning for a mission and baseball project. Of course today, (Thursday) Mother Nature had to show her nastiness and dump some snow on the situation, but we've been able to rearrange things and will set sail regardless.

Initial work will take place in Santo Domingo at the Christian School that Lighthouse Projects has a hand in. There will be numerous building projects as well as opportunities to share the gospel. And then there is the baseball portion of the trip. Here's the skinny.....

I'd like you to take a look at the picture below and imagine in your wildest dreams what sport is played there? If you thought motocross, you're wrong. If your guess is golf, you'd be off base too. Try baseball. That's right baseball. And not what you'd call a "Field of Dreams" site at the present time, either. Is it?

It's a what kind of field?

The ballfield you see is located in Las Charcas in the Dominican Republic. Population, 9,254. Now imagine again, what it would be like trying to play your country's favorite sport if you were one of the youth of that community (over 2,000 by some estimates) . Let's not mention the lack of a backstop or fence. Or dugouts. Or grass. But let's focus on what is there...... rocks. Not small pebbles mind you. But rocks the size that many in the United States would use for accent in their gardens.

Let's take the imagery one step further. It's the bottom of the ninth in the hotly contested ballgame at Rockbottom Field. Two out. Bases loaded. Home team is trailing 4-2. There's a line drive hit to the shortstop's feet. He reaches for the ball, but it caroms off a small boulder and ricochets to the third base foul line and three runs score. Game over. If you're the home team you're happy, but if you're the visitor you're pretty upset to lose that way. These are the elements Las Charcas' youth play with. Not because they want to, but they have to. There is no other place to play. For now....

To understand what baseball means to Las Charcas, local organizer Cristian Santiago, had this to say, "baseball is the most popular sport in all of the Dominican Republic. Building a field for this community would attract baseball teams from up to 3 hours away and would be the pride of Las Charcas!"

Las Charcas in its present state

The cost of the project is estimated to be $49,780 and is broken down as follows:

Cost

Cement blocks ( 8900 at $1 each) $ 8900
Sand needed (9 truckloads at $900) 8100
Gravel needed (8 truckloads at $900) 7200
Bleachers $12,000 12,000
Fencing 8,000
Bags of cement (620 needed at $9 each) 5,580